Chinese idiom · 成语
自食其果
Meaning
To eat one’s own fruit; to face consequences.
Character by character
Origin and story
Conventional expressionThis expression pictures a person eating the fruit produced by their own actions. In ordinary use, that fruit is unpleasant: someone who has behaved badly must bear the consequences. The Ministry of Education dictionary records this meaning without assigning the phrase to a particular ancient episode.
Although the metaphor resembles ideas of actions and consequences, resemblance does not prove a specific religious or historical origin. It is safer to understand this as a conventional moral metaphor, not a story about a named person.
Sources and further reading
In everyday life
他总是拖延交作业，最后只能自食其果。
He kept putting off handing in his homework and finally had to face the consequences.
Critical: the unpleasant result follows from the person's own behavior.